Some useless facts

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by Alan McDougall, Aug 7, 2010.

  1. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
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    General Interesting Facts - New amazing facts are routinely added randomly to the list!
    No piece of normal-size paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
    The first product to have a bar code scanned was Wrigley's gum.
    Earth is the only planet not named after a pagan God.
    A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
    The new 787 Boeing was revealed on 7/8/07 or July 8th, 07.
    Every day is about 55 billionths of a second longer than the day before it
    Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
    The Himalayan gogi berry contains, weight for weight, more iron than steak, more beta carotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges.
    Fingerprints of koala bears are similar (in pattern, shape and size) to the fingerprints of humans
    Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
    SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below
    Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like "baby-talk in Portuguese".
    As of 2006, 200 million blogs were left without updates
    Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.
    The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.
    Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.
    The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.
    Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defense secretary in US history.
    Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.
    Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.
    In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.
    Sex workers (Prostitutes) in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.
    As of 2006, more than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet.
    More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.
    The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.
    Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.
    Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five liters of cooking oil a year.
    Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.
    For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. (As of 2006)
    Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children
    Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.
    The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.
    Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.
    The egg came first.
    Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behavior" involving sex, drugs and drink.
    Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.
    In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.
    The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.
    Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.
    Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.
    The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.
    The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.
    The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface.
    A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.
    The two most famous actors who portrayed the “Marlboro Man” in the cigarette ads died of lung cancer.
    All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
    The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off.
    Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
    The inventor of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.
    The average bed is home to over 6 billion dust mites.
    The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
    The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
    Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do. (Makes you think about ambidextrous people)
    Its impossible to smoke oneself to death with weed. You won\'t be able to retain enough motor control and consciousness to do so after such a large amount.
    Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.
    The US national anthem actually has three verses, but everyone just knows the first one.
    During World War II, IBM built the computers the Nazis used to manage their death/concentration camps.
    The total combined weight of the worlds ant population is heavier than the weight of the human population.
    The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ.
    Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.
    Happy Birthday (the song) is copyrighted.
    The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.
    The average American consumes 1.2 pounds of spider eggs a year and eat 2.5 pounds of insect parts a year.
    Men can breastfeed babies
    There is a rare condition called Exploding Head Syndrome which you have probably never heard of.
    Scientists have determined that fungi are more closely related to human beings and animals than to other plants.
    In some (maybe all) Asian countries, the family name is written
    first and the individual name written second
    Abe Lincoln bought 50 cents worth of cocaine in 1860
    A German World War II submarine was sunk due to malfunction of the toilet.
    Washington State has the longest single beach in the United States.Long Beach, WA
    The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon, it measures three and a half miles in diameter.
    The town of Los Angeles, California, was originally named "El Pueblo la Nuestra Senora de Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula"
    9 out of 10 people believe Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.This isn't true; Joseph Swan did.
    Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.
    The Population of the world can live within the state boundaries of Texas.
    Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.
    Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter "e."
    Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is not considered an insult! Despite the expensive food, tipping is welcome as in any other country.
    Apples are more effective at keeping people awake in the morning than caffeine.
    The largest pumpkin weighed 377 pounds.
    The largest cabbage weighed 144 pounds.
    Pinocchio was made of pine.
    Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.
    A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.
    A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
    Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.
    The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
    Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
    New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
    There was once a town in West Virginia called "6."
    The parking meter was invented in North Dakota.
    Napoleon made his battle plans in a sandbox.
    Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator.
    The green stuff on the occasional freak potato chip is chlorophyll.
    Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
    There are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll.
    The Eiffel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it.
    "Jaws" is the most common name for a goldfish.
    On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
    Every minute in the U.S. six people turn 17.
    2,500 lefties die each year using products designed for rightists.
    Ten tons of space dust falls on the Earth every day.
    On average, a 4-year-old child asks 437 questions a day.
    Blue and white are the most common school colors.
    Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year.
    In a normal lifetime an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat.
    A new book is published every 13 minutes in America.
    America's best selling ice cream flavor is vanilla.
    Every year the sun loses 360 million tons.
    Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.
    The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour.
    The bulls-eye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground.
    The doorbell was invented in 1831.
    The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928.
    Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs.
    There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty's crown.
    Napoleon was terrified of cats.
    The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint.
    The typical American eats 263 eggs a year.
    The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935.
    The oldest known vegetable is the pea.
    Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
    The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.
    The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia.
    France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese.
    The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is "feedback."
    The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states.
    George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.
    Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935.
    The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey.
    Russia has the most movie theaters in the world.
    The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday.
    The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.
    The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902.
    Goldfish swallowing started at Harvard in 1939.
    Dry fish food can make goldfish constipated.
    The stall closest to the door in a bathroom is the cleanest, because it is the least used.
    Toilet paper was invented in 1857.
    Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.
    Before Prohibition, Schlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else, except the Catholic church.
    If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
    Kermit the Frog is left-handed.
    Nondairy creamer is flammable.
    The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile.
    If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun.
    The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
    It's rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breathalyzer to read 0. Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel proved this wrong.
    The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.
    The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself."
    Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.
    When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.
    Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is Number 47. Until August 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.
    When Saigon fell, the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" being played on the radio.
    The pet ferret was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.
    The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson's day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.
    The most common speed limit sign in the United States is 25 m.p.h.
    At any one time, there are 100 million phone conversations going on in the United States.
    The world's record for continuous pogo stick jumping is 41 hours.
    The Ottoman Empire once had seven emperors in seven months. They died of (in order): burning, choking, drowning, stabbing, heart failure, poisoning and being thrown from a horse.
    You can make edible cheese from the milk of 24 different mammals.
    Sir Isaac Newton, who invented Calculus, had trouble with names to the point where he would forget his brothers' names.
    In medieval Thailand, they had moveable type printing presses. The type was made from baked oxen dung.
    By law, employees do not have to wash hands after sneezing.
    The average American consumes enough caffeine in one year to kill a horse.
    More American workers (18%) call sick on Friday than any other day of the week. Tuesday has the lowest percent of absenteeism (11%).
    Enough beer is poured every Saturday across America to fill the Orange Bowl.
    A newborn expels its own body weight in waste every 60 hours.
    Whales die if their echo system fails.
    Florida's beaches lose 20 million cubic yards of sand annually.
    Naturalists use marshmallows to lure alligators out of swamps.
    It takes a ton of water to make a pound of refined sugar.
    Weevils are more resistant to poisons in the morning than at night.
    Cacao, the main ingredient of chocolate is the most pest-ridden tree in the jungle.
    In deep space most lubricants will disappear.
    America once issued a 5-cent bill.
    The average person can live 11 days without water.
    In 1221 Genghis Khan killed 1,748,000 people at Nishapur in one hour.
    There are 35 million digestive glands in the stomach.
    In 1800 on 50 cities on earth had a population of more than 100,000.
    More steel in the US is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.
    It is possible for any American citizen to give whatever name he or she chooses to any unnamed mountain or hill in the United States.
    King Henry III of France, Louis XVI of France and Napoleon all suffered from ailurophobia--fear of cats.
    Before 1850 golf balls were made of leather and stuffed with feathers.
    Clocks made before 1687 had only one hand, and hour hand.
    The motto of the American people, "In God We Trust," was not adopted as the national slogan until 1956.
    More Americans have died in automobile accidents than have died in all the wars ever fought by the United States.
    The ampersand (&) was once a letter of the English alphabet.
    The principality of Monaco consists of 370 acres.
    There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.
    During the time of Peter the Great, any Russian man who had a beard was required to pay a special tax.
    The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
    Coca-Cola was originally green.
    Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. treasury.
    The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters (I was thankfully corrected by a friend: The Hawai'ian alphabet has 13 letters, A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W, ' (which is called an okina).
    Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.

    The amount American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class: $40,000.
    City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong Kong.
    State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
    Percentage of Africa that is wilderness--28%. Percentage of North America that is wilderness--38%.
    Average number of days a German goes without washing his underwear: 7.
    Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%.
    Percentage of American women who say they'd marry the same man: 50%.
    Cost of raising a medium size dog to the age of 11: $6,400.
    Average people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
    Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
    The only President to win a Pulitzer Prize: John Kennedy for "Profiles in Courage."
    The youngest Pope was 11 years old.
    Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
    First novel ever written on a typewriter: "Tom Sawyer."
    A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why. (This was challenged and proved wrong by the TV show "Mythbusters")
    The main library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
    Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades--King David, Clubs--Alexander the Great, Hearts--Charlemagne and Diamonds--Julius Caesar.
    If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one leg front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all 4 legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
    Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. The last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
    The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are useable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
    The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
    The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
    The first airline, DELAG, was established on October 16, 1909, to carry passengers between German cities by Zeppelin airships. Up to November 1913, more than 34,000 people had used the service.
    Titanic was running at 22 knots when she hit the iceberg
    The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; '7' was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. 'UP' indicated the direction of the bubbles
    Francis Scott Key was a young lawyer who wrote the poem, 'The Star Spangled Banner', after being inspired by watching the Americans fight off the British attack of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The poem became the words to the national anthem
    Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard at the back of the room in which it originated
    Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know your there
    The bagpipe was originally made from the whole skin of a dead sheep
    Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver in 1836.
    It has been recommended by dentists that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet (two meters) away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush!
    In ancient Rome it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a crooked nose
    It is possible to drown and not die. Technically the term 'drowning' refers to the process of taking water into the lungs, not to death caused by that process.
    The first known heart medicine was discovered in an English garden. In 1799, physician John Ferriar noted the effect of dried leaves of the common foxglove plant, digitalis purpurea, on heart action. Still used in heart medications, digitalis slows the pulse and increases the force of heart contractions and the amount of b lood pumped per heartbeat.
    Dry cereal for breakfast was invented by John Henry Kellogg at the turn of the century
    During World War II, a German U-boat was sunk by a truck. The U-boat in question attacked a convoy in the Atlantic and then rose to see the effect. The merchant ship it sank had material strapped to its deck including a fleet of trucks, one of which was thrown in the air by the explosion, landing on the U-boat and breaking its back
    Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who died in 1832,left his entire estate to the London Hospital provided that his body be allowed to preside over its board meetings. His skeleton was clothed and fitted with a wax mask of his face. It was present at the meeting for 92 years.
    Diet Coke was only invented in 1982.
    Methane gas can often be seen bubbling up from the bottom of ponds. It is produced by the decomposition of dead plants and animals in the mud.
    There are more than 1,700 references to gems and precious stones in the King James translation of the Bible.
    The E. Coli bacterium propels itself with a 'motor' only one-millionth of an inch in diameter, a thousand times smaller than the tiniest motors built to date by man. The rotation of the bacterial motor comes from a current of protons. The efficiency of the motor approaches 100 per cent.
    Henry Ford produced the model T only in black because the black paint available at the time was the fastest to dry.
    At - 40 degrees Centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by breathing.
    Pet superstores now sell about 40 percent of all pet food
    One million Americans, about 3,000 each day, take up smoking each year. Most of them are children.
    In 1933, Mickey Mouse, an animated cartoon character, received 800,000 fan letters.
    There are only four words in the English language which end in '-dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous
    If you attempted to count to stars in a galaxy at a rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them all.
    Less than 3% of Nestlé's sales are for chocolate.
    The average person will spend two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change
    More than 2500 left handed people are killed every year from using right handed products
    It is estimated that at any one time, 0.7% of the world's population are drunk
    The tip of a 1/3 inch long hour-hand on a wristwatch travels at 0.00000275 mph
    Less than one per cent of the 500 Chinese cities have clean air, respiratory disease is China's leading cause of death.
    The number of cars on the planet is increasing three times faster than the population growth
    The X's that people sometimes put at the end of letters or notes to mean a kiss, actually started back in the 1000's when Lords would sign their names at the end of documents to other important people. It was originally a cross that they would kiss after signing to signify that they were faithful to God and their King. Over the years though, it slanted into the X
    Nova Scotia is Latin for 'New Scotland.'
    The term Cop comes from Constable on Patrol. It's from England.
    The collecting of Beer mats is called Tegestology.
    Even though it is widely attributed to him Shakespeare never actually used the word 'gadzooks'.
    Only 2 blue moons (the saying 'only once in a blue moon ' refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month) are to occur between now and 2001. Those times are January 1999 and March 1999
    "Naked" means to be unprotected. "Nude" means unclothed
    Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower', because in the time when al original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case stored smaller, 'lower case' letters
    In the 40's, the Bich pen was changed to Bic for fear that Americans would pronounce it 'Bitch.'
    < Life?. Wonderful A ?Its Capra?s Frank in driver taxi the Ernie and cop Bert after named were Street Sesame on characters>


    From the book "Polish Your Furniture with Panty Hose" by Joey Green.
    Copyright 1995. Reprinted with permission.
    For more alternative uses for products, visit www.wackyuses.com
    I highly recommend visiting his Joey's site

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    BOUNCE...the stuff you use in your dryer:

    IT............. Repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.
    Eliminates static electricity from your television screen.
    Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling.
    Dissolves soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a used sheet of Bounce.
    Freshens the air in your home. Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang one in the closet.
    Prevents thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce to eliminate the static cling on the thread before sewing.
    Eliminates static cling from pantyhose. Rub a damp, used sheet of Bounce over the hose.
    Prevents musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.
    Freshens the air in your car. Place a sheet of Bounce under the front sea
    Cleans baked-on food from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in the pan, fill with water, let sit overnight and sponge clean. The anti-static agents apparently weaken the bond between the food and the pan while the fabric softening agents soften the baked-on food.
    Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket. Collects cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the loose hairs.
    Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.
    Wipes up sawdust from drilling or sandpapering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.
    Eliminates odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper
    Deodorizes shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight so they'll smell great in the morning.
    COCA COLA
    Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl, Let the "real thing"sit for one hour, then flush clean
    The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china.
    To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca Cola.
    To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
    To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
    To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains.
    It will also clean road haze from your windshield.


    Lincoln and Kennedy
    Here's a little part of US history which makes you go h-m-m-m:
    Have a history teacher explain this if they can?

    Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
    John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
    Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
    John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
    The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
    Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
    Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
    Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
    Both Presidents were shot in the head.
    Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
    Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.
    Both were assassinated by Southerners.
    Both were succeeded by Southerners.
    Both successors were named Johnson.
    Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
    Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
    John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born! in 1839. I was corrected on this and he was born on 1838
    Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
    Both assassins were known by their three names.
    Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
    Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Kennedy.' I was corrected on this and the theater was named Ford at the time of the assassination. Thanks H.!
    Kennedy was shot in a car called 'Lincoln.'
    Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
    Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
    Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
    And here's the kicker...
    A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
    A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

    Interesting Fact about the Pope John Paul II death
    Pope was living 85 years - sum of those numbers = 13
    Pope died on 2.04.2005 - sum of those numbers = 13
    Pope died at 21.37 - again - sum is equal.... 13
    13...that's Maria's number - only that time Holy Mother was showing herself to 3 children in Fatima
    on 13th May 1981 - Pope was wounded and that time was saved by Holy Mother
    on 13th Pope went to the hospital for the first time
    on 13th died the last child of three from Fatima to whom Holy Mother showed up
    Pope died on 02.04.2005 at 21.37.. add all those numbers....
    2+4+2+5 = 13
    2+1+3+7 = 13
    13+13=26
    26 years of pontificate......
    Coincidence? or it had to be like this?
    in the end......he died in 13th week of the year...and when you multiply the time of his death 21 x 37...you will have 777
    Pope was living exactly 31 thousands days...if you reverse
    figures...you will get again 13!!!


    World Cup
    Brazil last won the world cup in 1994. Before that they won it in 1970. Add 1970 and 1994, it equals 3964.

    Germany last won in 1990. Before that they won in 1974. Add 1990 and 1974, it equals 3964.

    Argentina last won the world cup in 1986. Before that they won it in 1978. Add 1978 and 1986, it equals 3964.

    So going by this logic, The winner of the 2002 world cup is the same as the 3964 - 2002 = 1962 world cup. The 1962 world cup was won by Brazil. It was really Brazil who won!!!


    Importance of Drinking Enough Water
    1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
    2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is
    often mistaken for hunger.
    3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
    4. One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
    5. Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.
    6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
    7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen.
    8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.


    Here is a list of what I thought very funny. I left it in the form that I received it.
    If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.(Hardly seems worth it.)
    If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that's more like it!)
    The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body
    to squirt blood 30 feet. (O.M.G.!)
    A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
    A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy.) (I'm still not over the pig.)
    Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home...... maybe at work.)
    The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. ("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")
    A mantis breeder has assured me that you preying mantis can copulate with the male's head still attached, even several times.
    The flea can jump 350 times its body length. For a human, that would be equivalent to jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes...lucky pig... can you imagine??)
    The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
    Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)
    Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)
    The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. (Hmmmmmm........won't go there.)
    Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
    Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing....)
    A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out.)
    An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)
    Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)
    Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)
    Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??)

    • Just twenty seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.
    • The 'You are here' arrow on a map is called the IDEO locator.
    • MTV first aired at 12:01 AM on August 1, 1981. The first video was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Bugles.
    • There are more than 1,00 chemicals in a cup of coffee.
    • There are only four words in the English language which end in '-dous':tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous .
    • The number of cars on the planet is increasing three times faster than the population growth
    • At - 40 degrees Centigrade a person loses about 14.4 calories per hour by breathing.
    • Pearls melt in vinegar.
    • A lion's roar can be heard from five miles away.
    • Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating.
    • There is about 200 times more gold in the worlds oceans, than has been mined in our entire history.
    • Hair and nails do not continue to grow after death. The skin recedes, making it appear to grow.
    • Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.
    • Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music.
    • The cockroach has a high resistance to radiation and is the creature most likely to survive a nuclear war.
    • In the southern hemisphere, water always swirl anti-clockwise down into a pipe.
    • About 8 million blood cells die in the human body every second, and the same number are born each second.
    • Eighteen per cent of all global carbon dioxide emissions are from cars.
    • Every year, the Moon moves a further 3.82cm from the Earth.
    • It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.
    • 35 meters of hair fiber is produced every day on the average adult scalp.
    • Hair is the fastest growing tissue in the body, second only to bone marrow.
    • Dolphins don't automatically breath; they have to tell themselves to do it.
    •The term Cop comes from Constable on Patrol, which is a term used in England.
    • The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
    • Onions get their distinctive smell by soaking up sulfur from the
    soil.
    • Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered as a propagator of violence-he invented dynamite.
    • Whoopi Goldberg was a mortuary cosmetologist and a bricklayer before becoming an actress.
    • Guinness Book Of Records holds the record for being the book most stolen from Public Libraries.
    • Charlie Chaplin won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest.
    • Walt Disney named Mickey Mouse after Mickey Rooney, whose mother he dated for some time. Another story states that: Mickey mouse was not named after Mickey Rooney he was made on a train ride from New York after Walt found out he didn't actually own Oswald the lucky rabbit. The mouse Walt drew was originally named Mortimor But his wife Lilly didn't like that name so she suggested Mickey and the name stuck.
    • Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn't wear pants.
    • From 1942 until the end of World War II, Oscars were made out of plaster to conserve metal. After the war, the winners received "real" replacement statues.
    • The only Oscar statuette ever made of wood was presented to Edgar Bergen in 1938 for his "outstanding comic creation," his ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy.
    • A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet.
    • Pamela Lee-Anderson is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence.
    • Tokyo has had 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional Japanese greeting.
     
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  3. Pinwheel Banned Banned

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    ZZZZzzzzz.
     
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  5. InTheFlesh77 Set the controls... Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    177
    :spank:

    Useless facts are called useless facts for a reason...no-one gives a damn!.
     
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  7. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,855
    Glad to see you're getting an education, Alan. LOL!
     
  8. Kernl Sandrs Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    645
    It would be nice if you could leave a space between each line. They're awfully difficult to read.


    AmusingFacts.com has a very lengthy list of strange facts.


    http://www.amusingfacts.com/fact/index.php


    They also have some pretty good jokes, too. Like this one.
     
  9. DanceAndExplode Fear me, for I am Death. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    742
    There are five calories in a teaspoon of semen.
     
  10. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    410
    In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    This is not true, although it is understandable. The flushing toilet was invented by John Harrington in 1596. Joseph Bramah of Yorkshire patented the first practical water closet in England in 1778. However, Thomas Crapper was a plumber in London in the 19th century when the flush toilet became popular in upper-class households. He specialized in installing toilets and held several patents for improvements in its technology. He advertised heavily so his name became associated with the device. He probably would not have minded that, but he would certainly object to "crapper" being (quite logically!) shortened to "crap" and made into a verb. See Wikipedia.
    The full title is "Happy Birthday to You" and the company that owns that copyright, Warner/Chappell Music, enforces it assiduously. They typically charge $700 for the right to sing it, and in case you haven't noticed, waiters in restaurants rarely sing it any more because Warner went on a draconian campaign to bust them for performing it in public for profit without paying for the rights. You seldom hear it in movies or on TV either; Warner typically charges several thousand dollars for that.
    Fungi are in fact not plants at all. The old two-kingdom taxonomy paradigm (animals and plants) has broken down with modern DNA analysis. The (arguably) most commonly used paradigm has six kingdoms: animals, plants, fungi, algae, bacteria and protists (some extremely primitive organisms). Fungi do not have a chlorophyll-based metabolism, so they are NOT plants.
    That's my hometown so let's get it right: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula, "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels of the Little Portion."
    That's because it has an astoundingly high fat content for a fruit. This is why they taste so good!
    The original wild turkey was not so stupid, or the species would never have survived. Like the chicken and many mammals, its intelligence has been lowered by captive breeding. Smart animals are more difficult to handle, so why bother. Even the dog is not as bright as the wolf, even though they are the same species, although in this case it's because the dog had to adapt to the lower-protein diet of a scavenger and maintaining brain tissue requires enormous amounts of protein.
    Virtually all Muppets are left-handed. The puppeteer puts most of his effort and attention into operating the head, mouth, eyes, etc., and like the rest of the population most Muppeteers are right-handed.
    I can find no substantiation for this assertion. The ferret was first domesticated 2500-3000 years ago. The cat goes back almost ten thousand years. Like the dog, pig and goat, the cat is self-domesticated. Unlike the dog, pig and goat, who are scavengers and moved in with us to eat our garbage, the cat was attracted by the rodents who were raiding our grain stores.
    Road accidents are among the top five causes of death all over the world. Even in poor countries where most people can't afford a car (they also can't afford glasses so the people who do drive are really bad at it), and even in dysfunctional countries where people are shooting at each other.
    This became a major problem in the late 1960s when rock and roll concerts were produced in ever-larger venues with loudspeakers positioned throughout the hall. If you sat in the rear of the hall, the sound from the loudspeaker, which was transmitted at the speed of light through electronic cables, reached your ears earlier than the sound from the stage, which was traveling through air at the speed of sound. The Grateful Dead invented circuitry to delay the arrival of the electronic signal so it would more exactly coincide with the natural sound wave.
    Not really. Google the character string -DOUS and see what you get. There are all kinds of scientific words, like molybdous, the high-valency version of a molybdenum ion in the molecule of a chemical compound.
    This is what we call a folk etymology, i.e., clever but untrue. It's only in the 20th century that the English language has begun creating words from acronyms, like laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). In the past, this technique was not used to create slang words. Some sources attribute "cop" to "cap" (in British English those words don't sound very different), an obsolete word for "arrest" or "seize," and others say it's an abbreviation of "copper," for the copper buttons on their uniforms.
    "Gadzooks" is a euphemism for the profane epithet "God's wounds," which was also shortened to "zounds." This way of softening profanity is also the source of "Jiminy Cricket" for "Jesus Christ."
    I think you mean "the only mammals." Most snakes can't jump. Neither can centipedes, snails or earthworms.
    I would add the bonobo chimpanzee, Pan paniscus, to that short list. Unlike the "true" chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, a rather treacherous and violent species, bonobos are the free-lovin' hippies of the jungle. They spend a significant portion of their time in sexual activity, in pairs and larger groups.
    This is due to the Coriolis force, caused by the direction of the rotation of the earth's surface as you get closer to either pole. However, it is a very weak force that almost requires laboratory conditions to observe. Toilets drain the way they do because of the shape of their bowls, not because of the Coriolis force. The most easily viewed evidence of the effect of the Coriolis force is the wear on north-south oriented railroad tracks. Depending on the hemisphere, one rail always wears down slightly faster than the other, because the Coriolis force pushes the trains in that direction. After many years of use the difference in wear becomes visible.
    Breathing can't be autonomic in a mammal that spends so much of its time underwater. It would find itself breathing at the wrong time. This leads to the question of how cetaceans manage their breathing when they're asleep. The answer is that only one brain hemisphere at a time sleeps, so the other one can take care of the oxygen supply.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2010
  12. Alan McDougall Alan McDougall Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    410
    Hi Fraggle

    I am seriously amazed at you depth of knowledge!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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